Lisa Barton is a graphic designer and poet living in Indianapolis. She is also the Art Director of Big Car Media, Inc. an Indianapolis based not-for-profit organization that promotes local art, music and writing by hosting shows and events. She attributes her writing success to an overactive imagination and off-beat sense of humor. Lisa has recently been published in NUVO Newsweekly (2004) and Jake Magazine (2005).
Lisa Calame Berg is a graduate of Carleton College, William Mitchell College of Law and is currently studying for a MFA in fiction and poetry at Hamline University. After over twenty years as a lawyer, most of them as a prosecutor in Minneapolis, she is now devoting her energies full time to her family, the study of poetry and art history, and her garden, which has recently been decimated by a nasty infestation of slugs. She has no connections to Indiana other than Minneapolis, where she lives, is often mistaken for Indianapolis by people who live in NYC and Los Angeles.
John Borneman writes poetry and speculative fiction when he is not "wrangling statistics" during his day job. He has been published in magazines such as Star*Line, and Illumen. He was nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association's 2005 Rhysling Poetry Award. John's web site is at http://brassman.blogspot.com.
Scott Brewer was born in Grant County, Indiana. He grew up in Fairmount, and later in Fort Wayne. He graduated from Wabash College in 1980. Scott is a member of the Poetry Alliance of Indy and the Indiana Writer’s Center. He has been writing poetry for many years, and has taught workshops on creative writing and poetry. He participates at many readings in the central Indiana area. He has just published his first book, Indiana Instinct, with the help of an Indiana Arts Grant. His favorite subjects are Indiana and her residents, his family, and other poets.
Jared Carter, an Elwood native with many ties to Tipton and also to Windfall, lives in Indianapolis. His fourth collection of poems, Cross this Bridge at a Walk, will be published in 2006. Please visit his website at www.jaredcarter.com.
Elissa Cottle is a poet, mother of two boys, and neighborhood revitalization program coordinator in Minneapolis. She has recently started publishing poems, is pursuing a graduate degree in poetry and has been published in Main Channel Voices.
Originally from Lexington, Kentucky, Cyndi Fisher has been an active member of the Kokomo community since 1991. As a singer/songwriter, Cyndi performs locally, and her songs/poetry have received numerous awards, locally and nationally. Find out more at www.cyndifisher.com
Valerie Darling lives in Knightstown, Indiana.
Joseph Foster, an Indianapolis poet and fiction writer, recently raised awareness and donations for the Poetry in the Prisons program in Indiana State Prisons by walking 700 miles to Lake Negagamon, Wisconsin. He has written The State of the Union, a collection of 51 poems written about every state in our nation and the District of Columbia.
Mark Alan Goodman lives in Speedway, Indiana.
Barry Harris lives with his wife, Patricia, in Zionsville, Indiana and works at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis. A collection of his poetry, Something At The Center, is available online at Amazon and through his website at http://barryharrispoems.com.
Patricia Harris lives and works in Zionsville, Indiana.
Jessica Jewell lived in Indiana for six years prior to starting her MFA at Kent State University in Ohio. She misses Indiana the most in October.
Sharon Kapustinski lives in Meriden, CT with her husband and four children. She is an LPN currently working in a geriatric rehab setting and views life as a collection of poetry. Sharon has been published in The Connecticut River Review, The Meriden Record Journal, and the People's Press.
JL Kato is a native of Japan who grew up in central Indiana. He was the first host for the monthly poetry readings at Tipton. He serves as president of Etheridge Knight Inc. and organizes the quarterly Heartland Incantations: Voices of Hoosier Poets for the Beech Grove Public Library. He resides in Beech Grove and is the assistant features copy desk chief at The Indianapolis Star.
Joseph Kerschbaum has published 2 books of poetry. His new book, Dead Stars Have No Graves, will be published by Pathwise Press in Spring, 2006. For more information, visit http://joseph.matrixmag.com.
Elizabeth Krajeck, author of two chapbooks, received a 2006 Individual Artist Program grant from the Indiana Arts Commission, a 2002 Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis and serves as literary consultant for the G.C. Lucas Gallery in Indianapolis. She can be contacted at ekrajeck@aol.com.
Jake Lentz is a senior at Tipton High School. He participates in band, wrestling, German club, student council, and this year he is the Editor-in-Chief of the newly resurrected Tipton High School Literary Magazine. He plans to go to college and study music education/performance while playing with his band, Left in Ruins.
Rohana McCormack (nee Jeanne Eagles), born in North Carolina, has lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and in West Lafayette, Indiana. She is currently active in the Writers' Center of Indiana, reading and publishing. Rohana was among the Indiana Sesquicentennial Poets in a collection by that title, anthologized in Purdue University Miscellany, Indiannual (vols 1-5) and was recently accepted in an upcoming Pudding House Press anthology, Hymns to the Outrageous. She has been variously published in little magazines like Kayak, Sparrow, No Exit Quartet and Flying Island.
Karen D. Mitchell of Indianapolis is a wife, mother, cat lover, legal secretary, IUPUI English major/psychology minor, and proud member of local writing group The RRRRs. Karen’s poetry and fiction have appeared or will soon appear in genesis, Jake Magazine, Open Minds Quarterly, The Dream People, Right Hand Pointing, Pill Blues, Ribbons and Remark. She is the author of one chapbook, Thanatology of Moths, available from Three-Legged Cat Press at http://wearethecatsinside.blogspot.com.
Franklin Dean Oliver lives in Indianapolis.
Thomas Alan Orr’s first book of poems, Hammers in the Fog, was published in 1995 by Restoration Press. His poetry has appeared in two recent anthologies, Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor, and In Praise of Fertile Land, from the FCC Farmland Trust. Orr reads his poems in the feature film, Somewhere in Indiana, produced by independent film-maker Don Boner (2004).
Teri Osborn is a member of the Bloomington Pie Cutters Slam Team, and though she does not fancy herself a slam poet, she does enjoy performing as one. Her work has appeared in Spires and A Midwestern Review. She currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana, and is pursuing a Masters of Library Science.
Sam Platt lives in Kokomo, Indiana.
Lindsay Ann Rippberger graduated from Indiana University with a major in Special Education. Poetry has always been a part of her life but she began writing her own poems 4 years ago. Lindsay has written and illustrated two children’s picture books which she hopes to get published one day.
Clint Smith is an Honors Graduate from The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, Le Cordon Bleu, and is currently the Chef Instructor in the Culinary Arts Department at Central Nine Career Center. Clint’s poem, A Cross Country Team Runs by a Corpse, received an Honorable Mention Award for the 2005 Tipton Poetry Contest. When he is not teaching, Clint enjoys reading, writing and Chaos.
Michael E. Strosahl runs a newspaper distribution operation in Madison County and currently resides in Elwood, Indiana. He serves as the Membership Chair for the Indiana State Federation of Poetry Clubs and hosts a monthly poetry reading in Alexandria, meeting at the Lighthouse Cafe.
Larry D. Sweazy's poems have appeared in The Red River Review, The Raintown Review, and other small press literary journals. Larry’s short stories that have appeared in publications such as Texas Rangers (Berkley Publishing Group-2004) anthology, Hardboiled, and Kracked Mirror Mysteries. Larry is the winner of the 2005 Western Writers of America SPUR AWARD for best short story for "The Promotion", which will appear in the Best Mysteries of 2004 anthology to be published by Carroll & Graf. Larry lives in Noblesville, Indiana with his wife and dog.
Christina Williams, originally from Indianapolis, now lives and works in northeastern Ohio. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Clark Street Review, The Ledge, Qwerty, three candles, Maize, Snow Monkey and Country Feedback.
Dennis Zahm, born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, currently lives in Washburn, Wisconsin working in health care. Dennis has been writing poems and music since high school.